January 10, 2007 -- Darwin Island

So today is going to be a long day, we have 4 dives on the schedule and hit each one of them... one better than the next...

Dive 1

Dive Site: Darwin´s Arch
Max Depth: 100ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79

Details: This dive has been described as being another strong current dive. We had 2 plans of attack on this dive, the shorter if we are beaten up to much and a much longer route that took us around the arch. Never made it to the arch. My dive ended up being 46 minutes, max depth 98ft, visibility 50-60ft. After we entered the water, we managed to settle into the rocks at around 90-100ft. From here we saw schools of hammerheads and some of these got daring and same close up to us. at one point i spotted some swimming above us, seemed like we were getting surrounded. Since we had 3 more dives ahead of us, we headed up to shallower depths so we wouldn´t deco out. We settled in again around 40-60 ft. Here i focused a bit more on taking pictures of coral, fish and other stuff. The best shots are those of people holding on for dear life cuz of the current. Again, we saw ton´s of eels and barracuda´s, and other fish. Mark came on this trip with the tail end of a cold, and cuz of the depth he was having trouble equalizing as we ascended, so we took it in levels, 40ft-30ft-20ft, at each stop we waited about 3-5 minutes before heading to the next level. Eventually we made it up, and boy were we far from where we started at.

Dive 2

Dive Site: Darwin´s Arch
Max Depth: 100ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79

Details: Yet another tough dive. My dive ended up being 45 minutes, max depth 70ft and 50-60ft visibility. This time around the current felt rougher than before. The good part was, that our drop off point was at a shallower depth, so we weren´t struggling against the current to get to the rocks to hold on. Again, more species of fish were found here, trumpetfish, yellow-tailed goatfish and a steamer hogfish that would just not leave my side, but when i tried to take his picture he got shy and ran away... A really kewl fish i saw was a pacific clarinet fish, very kewl in color and i just hope the picture does it´s justice. On ascent, we got wrapped into a school of hammerheads swimming below us at about 50 ft. Mark go wrapped into watching them part ways as they came to him, we almost forgot we had to ascend not descent.

Dive 3

Dive Site: Cleaning Station
Max Depth: 110ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79

Details: Not as difficult of a dive as the past, and very enjoyable. My dive ended up being 45 minutes, max depth 72ft and 50-60ft visibility. As we decended on the coral ( or was it more like crashed onto it...opps), we slowly moved down to the sandy bottom where there was hardly any current... more just like small surges. We settled in there to watch the fish move by, then moved more to the deeper side of things and from different areas we spotted many other fish, black tip sharks, schools of barracuda, a nice trumpetfish, beautiful starfish and even turtles. Soon the hammerheads made an appearance. they were swimming low and seemed more interested in us that those at Wolf Island. We just sat in the sand and watched them swim by. Fid was so busy taking pictures of little stuff, he never spotted the hammerheads over his head. I used my clanger to get his attention, but he didn´t hear me, so i swam over to point them out to him. Just as i got to him, he was swimming forward and his hand almost landed on a scorpion fish, he of coarse had no gloves on... I stopped him, showed him the fish, he was gonna take a picture but then i pointed above him and he sway all the sharks circling us... Pretty kewl stuff, that boy owes me...

Dive 4

Dive Site: Cleaning Station
Max Depth: 110ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79

Details: Back to the cleaning station, but not everyone wanted to dive, so we all went with Edwin. My dive ended up being 54 minutes, max depth 79ft and 50-60ft visibility. This time around I did bring my camera with me. it was great!!! We decended to about 50ft, just before the sandy bottom. We needed to stay shallow, because of our deco time and this being the fourth dive of the day. So mark and i headed higher than the rest of the group and watched the fish swim by. Soon I was hearing a strange noise, it was a high pitch noise... Soon we realized, it was the dolphins, they were talking, but no where in sight. The sound was beautiful and relaxing. We them moved to the rocky/coral area just past the sandy bottom and settled into the rocks. As we headed that way, you can see the stream above us, and there was this poor turtle that seemed to be getting beatin up by the fishes. I have no clue what was going on, but that poor turtle finally made it past the fish and was off into the blue. The best part of the dive was that everyone was hanging out lower than us, so the hammerheads were heading in close. One got to abou 10ft from my face and when he got closer i snapped his picture... OMG it was too kewl. All in all, this was one of the less stressful dives and very enjoyable.

4 dives done, tomorrow back to Wolf Island...